“And you suspect the butler?”
“I do not say that, sir,” said the lawyer coldly. “We do not know that there has been any robbery until the plate is examined, but we ought to have sent for a doctor at once.”
“I’ll go,” said Capel, and hurrying out of the room, he ran down the stairs, caught his hat from the stand, and hurried from street to street till he saw the familiar red-eyed lamp.
Five minutes after he was on his way back in a cab, with a keen-looking, youngish man, to whom he gave an account of the morning’s discovery.
“Have you given notice to the police?”
“No.”
“If I were you, I should send a messenger straight to Scotland Yard. It will save you from the blundering of some young constable. Humph—too late.”
For, as they reached the room, there was the familiar helmet of one of the force, the man having found the door left open by Capel and rung.
He was a heavy, dull-looking man, who seemed, as he stood in the darkened room, to consider it his duty to thrust his hand in his belt, and stare at the ghastly figure on the floor.
Meanwhile the doctor was busily examining the body of the Indian servant.